Pioneers and Komsomol members on the soviet frontier

The adventure genre in Ukrainian children’s literature, 1940–1949

Abstract

The article is devoted to a comprehensive study of the transformations and functional features of the adventure genre in Ukrainian Soviet children’s literature from 1940 to 1949. The subject of the analysis comprises the tales by the classic writers of children’s prose: Karafuto by Oles Donchenko (1940) and The Masters of the Okhotsk Mountains by Ivan Bahmut (1949), which represent the chronological extremes of the specified decade (the eve of World War II and the era of the early Cold War). The relevance of the topic is determined by the need for a critical reconsideration of Soviet cultural heritage for children as a key instrument of the ideological experiment aimed at forging the “New Man” within a totalitarian society. The key problem lies in identifying the specific artistic interaction between the adventure plot and the rigid tenets of socialist realism (party-mindedness, class-consciousness), as well as clarifying the role of the exotic Far Eastern space in the construction of the Soviet myth. Over the course of the research, methods of cultural-historical and structural analysis were applied, incorporating elements of postcolonial studies (the concepts of “internal colonization” and “Soviet Orientalism”).

The key research findings and their novelty consist in demonstrating the stability of the “frontier” plot and spy mania in children’s writing throughout the 1940s. It is established that the Far East is interpreted by Oles Donchenko and Ivan Bahmut as a “Soviet frontier” — a space of danger, ideological confrontation, and the consolidation of the Bolshevik regime. The traditional tropes of adventure prose, such as shipwreck, captivity, Robinsonade, and mystery, are subordinated to the pragmatic goals of propaganda. The images of the Komsomol member Volodia Doroshuk and the pioneer Yuriy Zub are delineated as heroes of the Soviet modification of the Bildungsroman, where the heroes mature while demonstrating absolute loyalty to the ideology. The study reveals a contradictory imperial model of “internal colonization,” under which the authentic culture of Asian peoples (the Japanese, the Orochs) is described as manifestations of “backwardness” and “savagery” that require the civilizing intervention of the “progressive center.” The formulaic finale of both works is built upon the appearance of a Soviet deus ex machina (border guards, a GPU official representative), which symbolizes the omnipotence of the Soviet regime and total security of the USSR’s borders. The prospects for further study lie in the possibility of analyzing the formulaic elements of the adventure and spy genres in Mykola Trublaini’s The Schooner “Columbus” and Oles Donchenko’s The School Over the Sea.